encourage multinational enterprises through consistent policy implementation. According to Saqib Ahmed, Managing Director of System Analysis Programme Development (SAP), “The excellent human resource of Pakistan usually moves out of the country either seeking jobs or to work as self-employed”.
SAP is a global software company headquartered in Germany that specializes in developing enterprise software for managing corporate operations and customer relationships. Cloud services are more important in today’s contemporary environment, and organizations are adopting them willingly instead of managing their own data centers and integrating them into their IT processes.
While addressing the media, Mr Ahmed said that there was a strong global voice regarding rules regulating Cloud services. Mr Ahmed, on the other hand, stated that diverse geopolitical events were posing new hurdles to Cloud firms. He said, “The demand is rising for Cloud services’ providers and data center operators to apply laws of the country placing its data with them instead of the laws of the host country, to ensure that any war-like situation does not affect their data”.
Similar to numerous other countries, Pakistan’s concerned authorities keep an eye on employees and senior management of organizations that manage data for public and private sector enterprises. Pakistan has also asked SAP to transfer data of Pakistani enterprises in the Gulf area to China, citing the presence of several Indian people in senior positions in the Gulf region.
Currently, over 90% of governmental and private sector organizations in the nation utilize SAP technology to streamline their operations. SAP serves over 230 million Cloud users and over 100 IT solutions that span every business activity. Compared to non-Cloud-based solutions, a Cloud-based solution secures enterprises financially, lowers human error, and enables greater streamlining and coordination. The second major step that the government and the State Bank of Pakistan needed to take was to provide an efficient way for paying suppliers residing overseas and returning revenues.
Mr Ahmed stated that in order to promote IT-based solutions in the country, the government must prioritize local software development and be dynamic in the process. According to the SAP MD, “Consistency of policies regarding taxation and other facilitations is extremely necessary as the IT sector has seen tax imposition and its waiver again and again and such steps confuse international players”.
